Then it doesn't need much sense to see that, ere long, we shall be having a Catholic army down here to retake the place; that is, if the Huguenot lords are not strong enough to stop them on their way." "And you think the Catholics are not on their guard at all ?" "Not they," Pierre said contemptuously.

"They have been strengthening the walls and building fresh ones, thinking that an attack might come from without from the Huguenots; and all the time the people of that religion in the town have been laughing in their sleeves, and pretending to protest against being obliged to help at the new works, but really paying and working willingly.

Why, they even let the magistrates arrest and throw into prison a number of their party, without saying a word, so that the priests and the commissioners should think they have got it entirely their own way.
It has been fun watching it all, and I had made up my mind to take to the woods again, directly it began.

I had no part in the play, and did not wish to run any risk of getting a ball through my head; whether from a Catholic or a Huguenot arquebus.
"Now, of course, it is all different.

Monsieur is a Huguenot, and therefore so am I.It is the Catholic bullets that will be shot at me and, as no one likes to be shot at, I shall soon hate the Catholics cordially, and shall be ready to do them any ill turn that you may desire." "And you think that if necessary, Pierre, you could carry a message into the town, even though the Catholics were camped round it." Pierre nodded.
"I have never seen a siege, master, and don't know how close the soldiers might stand round a town; but I think that if a rabbit could get through I could and, if I could not get in by land, I could manage somehow to get in by water." "But such matters as this do not come within your service, Pierre.
Your duties are to wait on me when not in the field, to stand behind my chair at meals, and to see that my horses are well attended to by the stable varlets.